The story in Finland of a 9-year-old girl raided by the police over a single music download has come to a head-spinning end. Despite criticizing the heavy handedness of the authorities and describing an anti-piracy group's demands for cash settlement as "mafia-like", the father of the child has chosen to pay up to make possible legal action go away. Anti-piracy group CIAPC says it is happy with the 300 euro cash payment.

After being accused of illicit file-sharing earlier in the year a man from Finland was presented with an unsettling letter.

Anti-piracy group CIAPC (known locally as TTVK) said they’d tracked the man’s Internet account to the unlawful sharing of a single music album by local artist Chisu. To stop matters progressing further all he had to do was pay a settlement of 600 euros and sign a non-disclosure document.

However, he chose not to pay and true to their word, last Tuesday CIAPC escalated the matter. The police turned up at Aki Nylund’s house and upon discovering that the man’s 9-year-old daughter (now 10) had done the sharing, confiscated her Winnie the Pooh laptop.

“I got the feeling that there had been people from the MAFIA demanding money at the door,” Nylund explained.

There was outcry. Everyone from the girl’s father, the artist in question, the general public, and even Finland’s Minister of Culture had complaints to make about the heavy-handed and disproportionate action.

General feeling was that this mess could be an opportunity for a more sensible look at copyright enforcement, but today those hopes have been pushed aside.

The father of the now-10-year-old has agreed to pay a cash settlement to CIAPC of 300 euros, exactly half the original demand.

“We are very happy,” says CIAPC chief Antti Kotilainen. “In a way, we just continued the original negotiations from where we left off.”

In return CIAPC have withdrawn their request for a pre-trial investigation and the police have closed the file.

“We reversed the call for an investigation because we reached an agreement with the girl’s father,” Kotilainen said.

While Aki Nylund will be glad that the case is closed and his daughter’s property will soon be returned, the payment of a cash settlement effectively puts this case back to square one.

Little wonder that CIAPC are pleased with the outcome. Over a single instance of petty file-sharing their demand for cash has been satisfied, via the use of the police and public purse, and despite the outcry.

With this victory under their belt CIAPC will almost certainly be back with more cash demands in the future. Alternatively, we could see them insist that the government seriously considers a three-strikes style infringement system. This settlement has almost guaranteed that.